Nigeria to get 42 million vaccine doses from AU platform —Minister

Nigeria will soon receive over 42 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that will cover an estimated 45 per cent of the country’s population, the Federal Government said on Monday.

The government said Nigeria subscribed to two multilateral vaccine access platforms; the first being the COVAX facility that will supply members, including Nigeria vaccines free to cover 20 per cent of the population.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said these in Abuja during the weekly press briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

He said, “With regard to vaccines, Nigeria has kept abreast of global development and supports the call of WHO for fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, since COVID-19 is a threat to mankind.

“We subscribed to two multilateral vaccine access platforms; the first being the COVAX facility that will supply members, including Nigeria, vaccines free of charge, to cover 20% of our population. The expected first wave of 100,000 vaccines derived from this facility.

“There has since been a change that now offers Nigeria 16 million vaccine doses in the first half of the year. The other multilateral platform is the African Union AVATT platform, the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, chaired by the President of South Africa, Mr Ramaphosa.

“AVATT has acquired 300 million doses of three types of vaccines which have been offered to African countries, based on population, such that no country is left behind. Punch